It used to be that our beloved NHS was in crisis every winter. But now the NHS seems to be permanently in crisis. And every year we’re told the NHS needs ever more of our money and ever more staff. In this week’s budget it was handed another few billion which will no doubt disappear down the massive toilet of waste and profligacy that is our national healthcare service.
I realise we have had the pandemic and then seemingly endless strikes by doctors and others. But the NHS’s problems started long before the pandemic and the strikes.
Last week the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released data showing the number of staff by main work categories for each of the constituent parts of the U.K. – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (These figures are expressed as FTEs – full-time equivalents – so this takes account of people who may be working part-time.)
As each of the countries classes NHS employees in slightly different ways, it’s difficult to get reliable total NHS employee figures for the whole U.K. However, if we just look at the largest part of the NHS – NHS England – we can get a reasonable idea of what’s going on. Here’s a summary chart produced by the ONS:
Now let’s look at the numbers:
- The number of doctors increased by 37,467 (up 37%) from 101,137 in 2013 to 138,604 by 2023.
- The number of nurses and midwives increased by 68,063 (up 23%) from 295,163 in 2013 to 363,226 in 2023.
- The number of scientific staff increased by 42,938 (up 13%) from 123,912 in 2013 to 166,850 in 2023.
- The number of support staff increased by 125,510 (up 45%) from 279,579 in 2013 to 405,089 in 2023.
- The number of infrastructure staff increased by 62,758 (up 41%) from 152,437 in 2013 to 215,195 in 2023.
- The number of ambulance staff increased by just 1,721 (up 10%) from 17,537 in 2013 to 19,258 in 2023.
Here are just a few things you might have noticed:
- The total number of staff increased by 338,4577 (35%) from 969,765 in 2013 to 1,308,222 in 2023.
- The largest increases were in non-medical staff, with support staff shooting up by 45% and infrastructure staff rising by 41%.
- The smallest increase was in ambulance staff – up just 10%. Some people might find that slightly worrying. But don’t worry, at the same time as the number of ambulance staff has gone up by only 1,721, the number of DIE (diversity, inclusion and equality) managers has shot up from virtually none in 2013 to more than 800 now. So, if an ambulance does actually manage to reach you before you croak it, the ambulance workers will no doubt be wonderfully racially and gender diverse, which is what you absolutely want from an ambulance service.
We’re constantly told that one reason the NHS is collapsing is a rising population. But the population of England only rose by around 7% between 2013 and 2023. At the same time the number of doctors rose by 37% and the number of nurses and midwives rose by 23%. In Scotland the number of NHS staff rose by about 20% while the population only rose by around 2.7%. In Wales NHS staff numbers increased by 32% while the population only went up by 2%. And in Northern Ireland, NHS staff numbers rose by 20% while the population only increased by 4%. So the excuse of the NHS needing many more staff to cope with a rapidly rising population doesn’t hold water.
Another reason given for the NHS’s constant state of disintegration is that the U.K. population is getting older. Over the period from 2013 to 2023 the mean age of the U.K.’s population rose from 39 years to about 41.5 years – a rise of 6.4%. So this excuse seems pretty flimsy, too.
And then there’s the usual bleating that we don’t spend as much on health as other developed countries. It’s true that we spend less per capita than several European countries. But U.K. health spending per capita is on the OECD average:
While there is some truth in the claim that some other countries spend much more per capita on health, many spend less and we don’t hear about their health systems collapsing like our beloved NHS. So levels of spending and staffing cannot be the only reasons for the utter chaos in our health service.
A better explanation for the NHS’s floundering failure can possibly be seen in the massive increase in non-medical staff – an increase in support staff in the NHS England of an astonishing 45% and in infrastructure staff of 41%. It’s not obvious why a population which has increased by just 7% between 2013 and 2023 and which has got very slightly older should require such a huge rise in non-medical NHS staff. And there has been a 22% increase in NHS administrative staff in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland yet the population served by the NHS there has only gone up by around 2.7%.
But you can look at the numbers, think about your own, your friends’ and your families’ experiences of our pitiful NHS and make up your own minds about the competence of NHS management and the fact that our NHS seems to be doing ever less with ever more money and ever more staff.
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
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If they are intent on doing this, one might suggest that mileage is obtained from the odometer at the yearly MOT rather than a privacy destroying network of CCTV.
At least it could be less bad.
That would be common sense, unfortunately it would remove instant pricing control from government.
You would still be able to drive where and when you like and pay after! that’s not what the ptb are doing this for they want, at the moment control, by financial or technological means
Not to mention a lucrative black market in “clocking”? Reporting mileage on changing a vehicle mid-way through the year?
And pay-per-mile will not apply to false plated vehicles or overseas registered ones in difficult to trace places. There are many of the latter around London and I expect in other cities too.
If pay-per-mile ANPR surveillance is implemented, false plated vehicles will be very rapidly caught (or should be).
A work colleague was able to show that a speed camera had recorded a similar vehicle to his falsely showing his registration number. Great, he avoided the fine but was stopped many times in the months afterwards because the cops ANPR pinged his plate as ‘dodgy’.
A bit later he heard that someone had been stopped in a car with his plate after a passenger was seen exposing himself. A likely story – we teased him mercilessly at the pub.
Indeed….You don’t know who you’re cloning!
If ANPR infra is extended that far I’d guess it would be repeatedly damaged
Not necessarily as the DfT provides a very useful way of finding out if a reg no actually exists via its website.
Maybe that explains all the fuss about Oasis and ticket pricing.
Not to mention all that extra date storage.
Exactly what I was about to suggest – no need for high tech and intrusive tracking systems.
For an ideologically driven government it doesn’t matter if a policy is ruinously expensive to implement, counterproductive, absurd, illogical, pointless. It will be done anyway.
The insane economical policies of various communist governments caused mass famine and destruction where millions perished. They didn’t care.
The ultimate aim of evil is destruction itself. It doesn’t want to demolish existing systems to replace them with something better; it just wants to demolish them.
None of this net zero nonsense will achieve anything. The world will not be cleaner, greener, a better place to live. It will be poorer, uglier, colder, a sort of dystopian wasteland where nothing works any more.
And it will be a dystopian world which the Tory party did more than its fair share of creating. Shameful, unforgivable behaviour by the Tories, who have danced to another tune for 25 years…
Yes! The Conservative party shifted left in 1997 when Blair won and have been labour lite ever since. If only they had the backbone to stick to solid right of centre policies.
If they did, many more younger people would still have a future. Well done!
Here’s a thought…….
Build more roads!
Then people will use their cars more, use more fuel and the tax revenue from fuel duty will increase.
Journey times will be shorter per trip but the volume of trips will massively outweigh that.
Productivity will increase, business will boom and, again, the tax take from increased business activity corporation tax etc will increase.
But that will increase atmospheric CO2…..or not really…….
‘A residence time of only 4 years for all CO2 molecules, regardless of origin, is consistent with the conclusion that nature is dominant in driving changes in CO2 concentration. Fossil fuel emissions serve only a minor role.’
‘Since 1750, additions to the atmospheric CO2 concentration derived from natural emission sources associated with biological processes are about 4.5 times larger than the contribution from fossil fuel emissions (e.g., 22.9 ppm per year from nature, 5.2 ppm per year from fossil fuel combustion).’
‘In other words, observed CO2 data contradict the climate narrative that says anthropogenic fossil fuel burning is driving CO2 concentration changes.’
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/08/30/new-study-co2s-atmospheric-residence-time-4-yearsnatural-sources-drive-co2-concentration-changes/
A dangerous, subversive thought-crime.
Your social credit score demerits have been recorded and you are hereby enrolled in the mandatory citizen-loyalty ‘residential’ training programme.
Whatever method of discouraging car use they choose the loser will be motorists who are the enemy of government when it comes to the fake climate agenda and the mass immigration agenda. They will switch to pay per mile as they are trying to coerce us all into EV’s with the no road tax bribe. But they also need us off the road as we continually fill the country up with millions more migrants. How many people do government think can comfortably live in these small Islands which are now the most densely populated part of Europe? 70 million, 80million, 100 million? How many?
Do we pick one of those suggested answers, or are they yearly figures?
Well I only ask because there seems to be no limits. Soon we will require a ring road around the Orkneys
Road taxes and vehicle taxes we know are not used to repair or improve the road network, it like N.I is just another way Governments rinse the public.
I do not believe the argument that cheaper fuel increases car driving miles, why would it?. Perhaps a few more people might go on a few more trips, but my guess is the majority of us use our cars as and when we need too.
So if the Government reduced the taxes on fuel it would leave more disposable income in the nations pockets which could contribute to house purchases, putting back into the economy through Retail etc.
It won’t happen though because all Governments want is more of our money such that they can increase control over us so they can hold on to power.
“majority of us use our cars as and when we need too”
Yes we still have the issue of wear & tear with advisable oil changes & services to keep things going.
And send to Ukraine, just a loan of course of. what was it last time six billion?
just wondering when the British taxpaying public will see those loans paid back into the tax system?
I was heavily involved in bidding to install & operate the LRUC (lorry Road user scheme) abandoned in 2006. Admittedly this was before smart phones, but through the scheme development the various bidders discovered all sorts of problems that hadn’t been anticipated. In the event it was going to cost about the same to introduce it as would have been collected.
A big problem was foreign vehicles. We were in the EU then & discrimination against an EU vehicles wasn’t allowed. Maybe that’s eased now? But what to do with cars & trucks arriving at Calais?
Retrofitting to older vehicles, maintenance, annual certification of units. Simple things like, who owns the unit in the vehicle. Who pays for the 30million needed. How is it enforced. Big bang or rollout.
Then the privacy issues. Do you get a bill with a snail trail of where you’ve been? To whom, car owner? Does everyone want their wife/husband/boss, whoever is the bill payer knowing everywhere they’ve been?
The issues are endless.
Anyone who is a member of the RAC should leave ASAP. The organisation has gone rogue. They should make clear to this awful organisation why they are doing this as well. The RAC obviously cares not one jot about its members, virtue signalling to the Govt is the main aim.
ABD & Fair Fuel are much better, I joined the former just to have updates on what ‘attacks’ against the motorist are in the pipeline.
Modern EV cars are smart phones on wheels in constant contact with the network, in that respect I would have thought EVs could go on to a pay per mile scheme right away.
The problem is with older cars, well no problem really for this Government, just impose a huge tax hike in lieu of being able to retrospectively put older vehicles on to pay per mile. Then, jack up the ULEZ schemes as well and they will be well on to the road of driving all old cars off the road. The Government will soon be getting petulant that few people are buying EVs and so many are still driving old cars that this would seem to be the way to go. Indeed next month’s budget could well see the Government take the first steps in ‘driving’ old cars off the road and moving to a high tech full surveillance transport system.
you can see it coming – they are releasing bits and pieces and seeing what the reaction is, we need to fight back against road charging with all our might….
First they came for the smokers etc, or should that be “far right”.
There are lots of ideas like this that could make sense if there was trust between the population and the government. See also gun control, ID cards etc.,
Mark my words, ULEZ will be converted into a generalised road charging scheme, with no waivers for electric cars, within 12 months.
Was this 20MPH mentioned in their manifesto? I must confess that I didn’t pay attention to a bunch of Globalist lackies, but would be interested if they even cared to mention it.
The idiots in charge are still wedded to the idea that BEVs are going to replace ICEVs, which is the root of this latest Government-created problem.
If only they could accept reality, and unfortunately politicians have no understanding of economics and only see the immediate, never the unseen.
Extract from Cafe Hayek:
Like a cost benefit analysis!
A halfway ground could be to turn some motorways into toll roads. Most toll roads already do ANPR for payment. All the small roads around me, though, are single lane with passing places and I doubt that the cost of installing the cameras would ever be recouped.
What might be even better would be to sell the rights and responsibilities of the road to investors and use the money to pay down the debt.
Of course, that’s not what will happen. They’ll sell the rights and then splurge the money on something shockingly wasteful and then still have a mountain of debt.
About those 2001 fuel protests, didn’t they threaten the hauliers and the companies that they worked for to remove their licenses. How very 21st century!
You know how they put trigger warnings on comedies from the 90s and beyond, well the way things are going, 90s comedies will be ‘problematic’, not because of some politically incorrect comments, but they show how much BETTER it was. Chatting to your local Doctor, short Airport visit (with fluids) and people having the freedom to jump into their car and go for a drive….Very problematic.
As far as I am aware, the US will not allow the use of its GPS system for raising money with pay-per-mile. The other option is the EU Galileo system that the UK is no longer part of but perhaps that is part of Two Tier’s smoozing in Germany and France.
It is so obviously a terrible idea for all the reasons you give that no wonder the slimy wankers at treasury love it.
A war against country people who are generally lower paid and have to drive longer distances
If I had been an RAC member, I would have immediately terminated my membership and switched to the AA (whom I’m already with). So many of these supposed ‘service’ organisations are turning into rampant ‘woke campaigning’ ones, to which the customer reaction has normally been “go [green] woke, go broke”. Let’s hope the RAC sees sense, and rids itself of this green cronyism, else it may find itself in a rapidly declining state.
I think if anyone thinks that any government, especially this government, will replace fuel duty with pay per mile, they are living in cloud cuckoo land. There is no way that they will give up the tax currently earned on all that fuel sitting unused in the tanks. If I put £50 in my car, that is instant tax for the modern day highwaymen which would take a month to recover at my mileage. No, pay per mile will never replace the current car tax, fuel duty etc etc and will only ever be charged in addition to the current method of fleecing us.